Sunday, November 30, 2008

A Changed World

Eugene, Oregon

What a world we have become. On November 4th, more Americans then ever came together and voted. Barack Obama is now the President-elect of the United States of America. Once again America has shown that we are hard to define and we have gone in a much different direction then anyone would have predicted. We have elected a man who outlined he wanted to bring change to America but I am struck by how his character and background is so uniquely American and I believe it will lead us to become a more intergrated part of the global village. What an exciting time to live and youth and millinialls help lead us on this new path. I spent time in the weeks before the election in far reaching places from Ashville, North Carolina to our Noarthern cousin in, Jasper Alberta. Everyone I spoke with was facinated by the election and the amount of people involved and engaged. I saw first hand a mother and a daughter in New Mexico connected by a common theme to perform an action in voting that they realize play such a critical role in their quality of life. It was humbling and inspiring at the same time but what a challenge awaits all of us.

Money is no longer growing on trees and we all know that we are entering a period away from hyper individualism and mass consumerism. Natural areas will be hurt as funding will be scarce. The local park I tell people to go together as families will be harder to protect. But it is somewhere that is free even if time becomes harder for most hard working Americans to find. We may finally get away from the mall for a while. We need a challenge to embolden us to showcase our strength and come together and make us all proud again. A new commitment has to materilize to put aside labels and finding new ways to create jobs in a new green economy which can put us back on a path to economic stability and cultural branding. If they wear Michael Jordan jerseys and think Obama is the coolest thing ever our youth leading a green economic revolution would be a stunning turnaround in American desitiny.

I point to Eugene, Oregon which was the final stop in my rollorcoaster off the last six weeks as a community that wants to be a leader in the movement to create change. In Eugene I spoke to a mixture of community leaders ranging from the City Manager to Director of the local YMCA and Forest Service Ranger originally from North Carolina. It was a diverse mixture of groups that spoke about solution to transportaion, zoning, school standards. Chris Ordingser, the Executive Director of Friends of Buford Park and Mount Pigsah said it best when he said "let's come down from our silos and go outside together and take our community back". They are arranging to put down some tent poles with certain organizations and groups and invite everyone in to work together to begin to address the challenges they face in getting every child outside to experience the "rain" of Eugene. At my night speech at the Shed a converted downtown church where my mother's favorite singer Joan Baez was singing the next night I saw a community have a frank and sometimes uncomfortable discussion on the barriers on this issue. They are significant snapshots at our daily life. Liability and fear can lead to hard truths being examined. But the overriding messege was hope. Hope that Eugene has a plan to figure it out through working together and making sure that every child can play in the rain.

Every community as its own way. The change we now have is because each community wants to be empowered as they were in the last election by a network that surpassed anything created before it. It was based on the positive power of change. We can come together and solve these problems but I realize we have to do it together as simple as that sounds. I think the Sierra Club and our dedication to making sure we can engage communities to empower themselves to be leaders in green energy and help create green jobs will blaze a new path to peace and prosperity.